1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to client-server network environments such as those commonly implemented using the Internet, and more particularly relates to Internet borne advertisements.
2. Description of the Related Art
Information that used to take weeks to search and retrieve is now at our fingertips. The proliferation of servers in on-line networks including the Internet, and in particular the World Wide Web (hereinafter the Web), makes a large amount of information accessible to almost anyone connected to the Internet.
A common layout language for a Web document is Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). Each Web document is given a "Uniform Resource Locator" (URL) which is essentially an address path identifying the server which hosts the desired document plus the location of the document on the server. Using browser software such as NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR (TM), an end-user can send a request from a client computer to access a document stored at a particular server referenced in a URL. When the server receives the user's request, it sends an electronic copy of the requested HTML Web document to the client where an image of the document can be displayed. One of the communications protocols used in making such a request and in transferring Web documents is "Hypertext Transfer Protocol" (HTTP). Servers that maintain HTML Web documents are referred to as Web sites. For more information about the Web, see for example T. Berners-Lee, R. Cailliau, A. Loutonen, H. F. Nielsen, and A. Secret, "The World Wide Web," Communications of the ACM, vol. 37(8), August 1994.
HTML allows any Web document to include hypertextual references (known as "links") to other Web documents including documents that are graphical images. The effect of a hypertextual link, as is well known by practitioners of the art, is that when the document containing the link is displayed to an end-user at a client computer, the end-user can access the linked document by pointing at, and selecting a corresponding icon or highlighted text in the displayed document; a graphics image that has already been created and stored in a graphic file is retrieved and sent over the Web to the requesting end-user's computer for display. Such pointing and selecting may be accomplished with a pointing device such as a computer mouse, joystick or track-ball, as is well known in the art. In some cases a link is followed automatically and without intervention on the part of the user, in other cases a link is followed only as a result of a user pointing at and optionally selecting a video image that represents the link.
Given the amount of information available via the Internet as well as the speed and costs of using the Internet, it is not surprising that the Internet is widely used as a research tool as well as for general business purposes such as advertising and commercial transactions. Another use of the Internet that is currently gaining popularity is in conjunction with the playing of digital electronic games (sometimes termed video games).
In using the Internet for digital electronic game playing, two or more players in mutually distant geographical locations, and using computers equipped for digital electronic game playing, can share in a single game. Generally, commercial game systems use server computers that are connected to the Internet by permanent data communications links that have high bandwidth and low latency. The server computers act as a liaison between the players both before and during game play.
Client home computers are typically connected to the Internet by temporary data communications links (e.g., using the ordinary telephone system). Each game service normally has a Web site that client home computers log onto in order to select the type of digital electronic game as well as to supply information required to allow the server computers to properly match players with similar skill levels, communications bandwidth, communications latency, etc. for game playing.
Due to the functions that it serves, such a Web site is known as a destination site. Thus a destination site may be a Web site that client-users log onto for the purpose of engaging in a compelling real-time event such as an electronic video game session. For economic reasons, and like many other Web sites, destination sites also have built-in hypertextual advertising banners to promote products, services, etc. The game player may use a pointing device such as a computer mouse to select a hypertextual advertising banner, the player's client home computer then establishes a HTIP connection with a designated Web site that furnishes the client home computer with additional information on the advertised product or service. In this manner the client home computer becomes disconnected from the destination site and the client-user's current task and/or context (e.g., a game session) becomes disrupted.
Such interruption is not desirable because in logging onto to a destination site such as a game system server, a client-user normally wishes to remain connected for an extended period to that destination site, at least until the current task is completed. As a result, the client-user may be hesitant to select an advertising hypertextual link even though interested in the particular product or service. When client-users avoid selecting advertising hypertextual links at destination Web sites, promotional benefits and opportunities are lost by advertisers who are paying valuable consideration to the service provider for the presentation, to the client-users, of advertising likes. This loss of financial benefit indirectly but significantly impacts the service provider.
Thus a need exists for a method and/or apparatus to make the exploration of advertising banners at destination Web sites more attractive to client-users.